Founder of Linux, Linus Torvalds, was asked by NSA to insert backdoor into Linux

During the Linux Conference on September 9, 2013, top Linux developers including the granddaddy himself, Linus Torvalds, answered several questions related to Microsoft, Linux, and other projects. One question in particular touched on the U.S. government and whether or not they tried to gain access to the core of Linux.

Linus Torvalds answered this question by saying the U.S. government tried — they asked to have a backdoor placed inside the Linux kernel — but Linux denied their request. Still, that doesn’t mean Linux is a safe haven for those who wants to escape the clutches of the U.S. government. From all the leaked documents released by Edward Snowden, it is clear the NSA is well tricked out to gain access to almost anything.

Furthermore, bear in mind that the NSA is a regular contributor to the open-source Linux kernel, so while the NSA contributing to an open-source project is better than the NSA contributing to a closed-source project, anything is possible with those guys.

Apart from being asked about the U.S. government involvement with Linux, one question focused on Microsoft and its search for a new CEO. Linus Torvalds and the other developers on the panel were asked about becoming Microsoft CEO and they all said they have not a single interest in being the next CEO of Microsoft. Because, you know, you have to be in bed with the NSA to be qualified enough to run Microsoft.

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About Vamien McKalin

Huge fan of Microsoft products, gamer, and an aspiring amateur photographer who wishes one day to get his hands on a Nokia lumia 1020. I also have super powers, you know, walking on water and all that.

smaragdus

[@Mike]
My comment can be offensive only to idiots.
-Hitler terrorized millions, Obama is terrorizing the whole world.
-Hitler had a great number of friends in the USA (including the Bush clan) who offered him great help to come to power.
-Hitler was a puppet controlled by those who needed the war- the Jews and the USA. Before the war there were many super-powers, after the war there was just one monstrosity- the brain (Israel) and the torso (USA). As Stalin has said- A death is a tragedy, millions of deaths is statistics. So the rich Jews who control USA didn’t mind some millions of casualties if they could establish Israel. Then USA plundered the world to help its servants in Europe.
Thank goodness I never watch American movies, which are pure junk.
I never buy anything that comes from USA (only Japanese, Chinese and European products).
I am not surprised that people like you are the majority over there in the USA- brain-washed victims of the total propaganda. If Americans weren’t as stupid and naive as they are, NSA would have never existed in its present form.
-Hitler’s regime was in power for about 15 years, while USA has been terrorizing the world for more than 60 years- Cuba, Central America, South America, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Granada, Nicaragua, Guatemala, the list of America’s victims is endless.
-You can read, you obviously have a computer and access to the internet- search for Noam Chomsky, buy some of his books, perhaps then you will finally understand what is USA is.
-Here American is a synonym of imbecile, red-neck, uncouth ruffian. Read your Henry Miller, the American, he described how free and happy he felt in Europe and how depressed and miserable in in NY/USA.
-Who helped the Nazi war criminals escape from Europe? Who used them to set up and train death squads in Arizona?
-Who used napalm against innocent civilians in Vietnam, in Greece?
-Who created the terrorism because there were no more enemies left to use them as scare-crows for ignorami like you?
-Who attacked and bombarded Grenada the day when the Berlin wall fell?
-Who trained and helped bin Ladin build his camps and attack the USSR troops?
-Who actually blew up the federal building in Oklahoma?
-Who really organized the attack against the twin towers?
-I hope one day you will find the truth although I doubt it.
-For decades USA has been importing scientists and scholars from all over the world. The rise of the USA military industry coincide with the fresh influx of German scientists.
-I don’t have the time to educate you, stop watching TV and Hollywood trash, start reading if you intend to become a human being. First buy some books by Chomsky. Good luck.

Mike

[@smaragdus] Your comment simply is offensive to all those groups who were the subject of Hitler’s extermination attempts. As well as to all those ordinary citizens in the U.S. (which, effectively, was the or a prime mover in bringing you the Internet that you now are using to malign others). Oh, and no Apple products for you (please send you iPods, iPads, (and other tablets, which likely would not have existed but for the iPad), and iPhones (as well as other smartphones) back), no Hollywood movies or U.S television shows for you (please turn your television off and refrain from watching U.S.-originating movies), no optimism for you that an ordinary person can make a success of him or herself regardless of background, no gaziilions of dollars in annual philanthropic aid for you (anti-malaria drugs or other drugs), no offers to help support you without thinking twice when you suffer an environmental disaster or have been unjustly attacked by a warring party such as the Hitler you seem to find benign (oops, there goes Europe in World War II), no technological advances for you in any field in which the U.S. avidly contributes, etc., etc. Sorry you find all of that offensive. When will you be sending your items back?

Seamus McSeamus

Regrettably, we in the United States must assume that we are being monitored at all times. If the NSA couldn’t get into Linux, they were successful in getting into Windows, Apple or any number of others. Hitler would have loved such an apparatus at his disposal.